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  Peyton pressed the launch button and sent up a prayer to anyone that was listening.

  A beat pulsed through the forest, and she could feel it deep inside her. Her ears popped, and the air in front of her shimmered before the weapon slowly dissolved right before her eyes. She almost couldn’t believe it. It took several minutes to disappear completely, a testament to the device’s complexity, and when the teleportation was done a giant crater filled the forest where the weapon used to sit.

  Peyton turned around and threw her arms around Dryce as relief surged through her. She’d done it! They’d done it. The planet was safe. At least from this threat.

  But before Peyton could say anything, something coiled around her throat and she was tugged back, and before she could realize what was happening, everything went black.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The screeching of metal and an otherwise eerie silence woke Peyton from her little nap. Her eyes flew open, and as she snapped immediately to consciousness she realized she hadn’t been asleep at all. No, she’d blipped out while teleporting right alongside the giant bomb she’d banished from the planet.

  And now that bomb was straining the bounds of whatever room she was in, tearing at the sturdy metal and sending a support beam crashing to the floor. The room was gargantuan, and at one point there must have been a teleportation hub in the middle of it all, but her little trick had seen that destroyed with the press of a button. She was just lucky that she wasn’t under all those tons of metal.

  She nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt a hand on her shoulder, but a moment later she realized it was Dryce materializing beside her and relief rushed through her. She didn’t want to be alone out here. They had to be in space. Gravity didn’t feel exactly right, too heavy, like the system wasn’t calibrated correctly, or maybe it was simply what these soldiers were used to back on their planet.

  “That can’t be good,” Dryce said, pointing to where half of the bomb was disappearing into one of the ship’s walls.

  “We’re lucky that it’s on the interior. If the hull had been breached...” Peyton shuddered to think of the results. “But someone’s going to come check this out soon.” They needed to get back to Earth, not only because it was home, but because she didn’t trust this ship to stay intact for long. If the weapon had caused severe structural damage, which it seemed was the case, they didn’t have much time. Not to mention the Earth forces attacking the Oscavian and Wreetan fleet.

  “We can find an escape pod,” Dryce suggested. “That will get us out of here quick enough.”

  Peyton glanced around, taking in the damage to their surroundings. She didn’t see a door, but from the way the weapon was blocking everything, she’d bet there was one hidden along one of the walls. “I was thinking of something a bit—aha!” Her eyes locked on the control console, which seemed to be intact. “As long as our teleport here didn’t damage the system too much, we can be home in no time.” Normally Peyton wouldn’t trust a compromised teleporter, but she didn’t want to risk going further into the ship. The teleport had already proved it could transport her and Dryce safely once, she was willing to chance it again.

  “Even without that hub?” Dryce asked. He, too, was looking around, though he seemed more focused on looking for threats.

  “We’ll see. Now help me.” Peyton rushed over to the console without waiting for Dryce to catch up. But he was right behind her and together they cleared a little bit of fallen debris and she looked over the display to see what her first step needed to be.

  Somewhere hidden by a huge chunk of a metal something groaned too loud to be anything living. At least she hoped it wasn’t. Only something like a giant could make a sound that loud and resonant, and they really couldn’t deal with a giant right now. Peyton’s tongue darted out to lick her lips. “You do have your blaster, right?”

  Dryce patted the holster in confirmation. “I’m going to search the perimeter for any danger. If it gets dangerous, take cover.”

  She bit back a sarcastic reply, but before Dryce could move away she reached out and grabbed his hand, tugging him close for a swift kiss. “Be careful. Come back to me.”

  “Always, denya.” His eyes briefly flashed red and he gave her a kiss of his own before backing away.

  Peyton watched him go until he disappeared before some of the fallen metal, and then she forced herself to get to work. They both had jobs to do. Dryce had to keep her safe, to keep them both safe, and she had to find a way to swiftly get them home. She’d already screwed up once by accidentally transporting them to this ship. She couldn’t screw up again.

  Just like the teleportation pad on Earth, the device on the ship was of Oscavian make. As she pulled up the information screens she was relieved to see that everything seemed to be functioning as well as could be expected with a giant, planet-killing bomb landing on top of the machine. Hell, it was functioning much better than could be expected. But Peyton quickly realized they had a problem.

  The weapon had landed in the heart of the teleportation hub, and she couldn’t pull the same trick that she’d managed back on Earth. That piece of creative programming had counted on the fact that they had a stable hub waiting for them, one that had already been programmed into the teleporter. With no landing pad on the other end and no hub to power the whole thing now, she had to start from square one and figure out a new way home.

  But she had a teleporter, she could do this.

  She smelled the thick ozone in the air half a second before she heard the shot of a blaster. Her head snapped up and she saw Dryce retreating, taking cover behind any standing metal he could find as he fired wildly back at whoever was shooting at him.

  Peyton winced and spared a glance at the weapon she’d brought back with them. She hoped the shots weren’t enough to set it off, but still she worried. Though, she reasoned, if it was stable enough to survive a teleport without exploding, a few hits of blaster fire probably wouldn’t hurt it.

  She put that out of her mind and did her best to focus on the problem in front of her. Get them home. Nothing else mattered.

  DRYCE WANTED TO YELL at Peyton to hurry up. The blaster shots were coming in faster and faster by the moment, and he was sure that a contingent of Oscavian and Wreetan soldiers were going to charge through the opening to the rest of the ship that he’d found at any moment. It wasn’t a door; instead a large gash had been torn in one of the walls. Distantly he heard a siren wailing and he was almost certain that evacuation procedures were being carried out.

  The few soldiers he’d actually seen were wearing full on survival suits, so even if the life support on the ship gave out, they’d have enough time to make it to an escape pod or would survive in empty space long enough for a rescue.

  He and Peyton didn’t have that advantage, and as he was looking at the only exit out of the teleportation chamber, he had to hope that Peyton figured out a way to get them back to Earth quickly. It would take his blaster a long time to overheat, but it wasn’t much of a match against survival suit clad soldiers.

  He risked a glance back at his mate and saw her hunched over the console, her face screwed up in concentration. It almost seemed like she didn’t realize they were under fire, but she flinched as a barrage of fire from the enemy went wide and echoed in the cavernous chamber.

  He needed to protect her. He needed to buy her time.

  The sirens suddenly got louder and the shots stopped. Dryce breathed heavily and didn’t dare move. He heard marching steps and couldn’t believe his ears as they grew fainter and fainter. Were they really retreating?

  “How’s it going over there?” he called to Peyton.

  She actually growled and then slapped her hand against the edge of the console. “Not well. You’d be surprised how delicate these things are.”

  Dryce didn’t know how to respond to that and Peyton didn’t seem to expect a reply. She absently ran her fingers through her hair before ducking out of sight, presumably to get a look at some
of the wiring under the console.

  Dryce strained to hear anything coming from the hallway, but the siren drowned most other sounds out. He risked darting a glance around the corner and didn’t see anyone lying in wait. Rather than risk it he picked up a piece of debris and tossed it into the corridor to see if anyone would flinch or shoot.

  No sounds. No shots.

  With not much other choice, Dryce went low and ducked into the opening, breaking for cover closer to the hallway. His heart beat hard enough to pound out of his chest, but no one shot, and the closer he got to the opening in the wall the more certain he became that the enemy had retreated.

  For some reason.

  He didn’t like it.

  He made it to the opening in the wall and glanced out. There was no one to be seen. The wailing of the siren got even more shrill, pulsing an insistent beat, and in the distance he could just make out an announcement filtering in through a speaker somewhere. His translator made easy work of the Oscavian, and as he heard the words ice lanced his heart.

  “Self-destruct sequence activated. Evacuate immediately. Fifteen minutes until detonation.”

  That explained the retreat. There was no need to shoot him or Peyton when the entire ship was about to blow up. He turned and ran back to his mate and hoped she had good news for him. But she was still hunkered under the console and swearing quietly when he made it back.

  “How much more time is this going to take?” He tried to keep the urgency out of his voice, tried not to make it seem like they were in a rush, but he couldn’t conceal it all.

  Peyton shimmied back into the open. “It will take as long as it takes,” she groused. “Do you want to try rewiring it?”

  She seemed ready to come to blows and the pressure mounted on top of pressure that she’d been through over the last few days was surely catching up. But they didn’t have time to argue. “The ship’s about to blow.” Dryce kept his tone matter of fact. There was no use for panic, that was a sure way to end up dead quick. “We have fifteen minutes. Can you fix the teleporter in that time?”

  Her eyes widened before growing wet with worry. “I—maybe? What if the answer is no?” She glanced back at the console, her eyes darting madly from one indicator to the next.

  “Then we find another way off this ship.” Dryce reached out and rested his hand on his mate’s. “You saved the planet. You did amazing. It’s alright if we can’t use the teleporter again. But we need to hurry.”

  She dragged in a shaky breath and cast her gaze back at him. “Fifteen minutes isn’t enough time.”

  Dryce nodded once. “Then we’re going. Follow me.”

  They skirted around some debris to make it to the makeshift door. The sound of the blaring siren distorted everything around them and though Dryce strained to hear if anyone was coming towards them. He couldn’t hear anything except the horn and the warning that time was running short. His senses were on high alert, ready to meet any threat, but they didn’t have time for any long, drawn out fight. Their only advantage at the moment was that any soldier they met would be in the same situation.

  And things wouldn’t exactly improve if they found an escape pod. They were ejecting into the midst of an enemy fleet and that fleet was under bombardment from Earth forces who’d have no way of knowing that Dryce and Peyton were in one of the escape vessels.

  They’d need to worry about that later.

  But they hadn’t seen anyone before they came to the first escape vessel. It became obvious why when the indicator beside the escape pod door showed that the vehicle had already jettisoned. They said nothing, just continued to move further into the ship.

  There was little sign of the damage that they’d escaped in the teleportation room. If Dryce hadn’t seen it himself, he would have wondered why the ship had engaged its self-destruct sequence.

  The second escape vessel station they found had also been jettisoned and Dryce’s worry grew as the countdown warned them that they had less than ten minutes to escape. The found a station stocked with survival suits and paused to put them on. It wouldn’t do much good if the ship imploded around them, but neither he nor Peyton mentioned that. His mate had a look of grim determination on her face and he was sure that she was thinking of all the alternatives for survival if they didn’t find an escape pod.

  They almost walked into a cluster of Oscavian soldiers, and it was only the clatter of something hitting the ground that warned Dryce to stop before they rounded a corner and gave themselves away. The survival suits might have bought them a second or two, but they weren’t much in the way of a disguise.

  His arm shot out to bar Peyton from moving any further forward and Dryce crept as close as he dared, trying to get a look. He watched as an Oscavian darted into an escape vessel and pulled the door shut behind him. Footsteps pounded down the hallway and a desperate cry sounded as someone begged them to wait, but even down the hallway Dryce could hear the vessel taking off.

  The abandoned soldier cursed and slammed something against the wall. Dryce eased back until he was beside Peyton. He readied his blaster in case the soldier came their way, but he didn’t want to engage if he could avoid it. There was no telling how many soldiers were left aboard and he didn’t want to waste time with a fight. And given the soldier’s reaction to losing out on a seat on that escape vessel, lifeboats were becoming more scarce by the minute.

  They waited for several long seconds, but the Oscavian gave a final curse and must have turned away, his footsteps fading in the direction that he’d come.

  Peyton and Dryce continued on, but they’d only made it a little ways before Peyton patted his arm to make him stop.

  Seven minutes left.

  She nodded towards a door with a symbol on it that he didn’t recognize. “Shipping room,” she whispered. “There could be an intact teleporter in there, or there could be a short range ship. I’ve studied enough Oscavian schematics to recognize that icon.”

  Of course, the door was locked. Dryce shoved his shoulder against it several times, but it didn’t budge. But with the clock counting down, they didn’t have time to give up. He took the butt of his blaster and banged it against the door handle, letting out a shout of triumph as the handle gave way and the door broke open. Peyton shoved in ahead of him, looking for their escape.

  Dryce didn’t see anything that looked like a ship, but a brightly lit empty space in the middle of the room could have been a teleportation hub. Peyton found the control console and started to type madly on one of the keyboards. After thirty seconds she looked up with a smile. “I think I’ve got it!” she exclaimed.

  Before Dryce could respond, the door behind him crashed open and an enemy warrior started shooting.

  Chapter Twenty

  Peyton got a glimpse of neon yellow skin and a scary looking blaster before she dove for cover, praying to any god she could think of that no damage was done to the teleporter. They had less than five minutes now, and she was not ready to die. She could hear Dryce fighting, blaster shots being exchanged, followed shortly by the sound of fists hitting flesh. The alien who’d come in wasn’t wearing armor or a survival suit, so she hoped that meant Dryce was in a better position. She had no idea.

  But Peyton couldn’t just cower in the corner while Dryce fought this battle for her. She dug a coil of wire out of her bag along with a thin knife that she used to splice it into the teleportation console. She had hoped to use a timer to get them off the ship, but with the alien right there they couldn’t risk taking him with them. It was quick work. Oscavian tech was practically as familiar now as what she saw on Earth.

  Something heavy bumped against the ground and Peyton risked a glance over the console to see Dryce sitting on top of the alien, a mask of fury on his face as he rained down blows on the man. She ducked back down and tested her makeshift trigger, satisfied when two wires met with a spark and the light on the teleporter hub shimmered.

  On the ground the enemy alien groaned. Still alive, but not for l
ong. Peyton sprang up from her position and had to wave one arm around to get Dryce’s attention. “Come on,” she said, nodding towards the platform. “Leave him there. Let’s get out of here.”

  Dryce’s eyes were red and she spotted claws sticking out from his knuckles. The anger on his face made him look more monster than man, but she did not fear him for a moment. She only feared that he was so absorbed by the fight that he would not escape with her. She wasn’t leaving him behind.

  Dryce looked down at the alien and then back up at her. “He’s—”

  “This place is going to blow in two minutes,” she cut him off. “He’s dead already.”

  “I think—”

  “Dryce, if you don’t come here right now and teleport away with me we are both going to die. Leave him.” She had heard of the focus that warriors could find in battle, a mindset that let them ignore all other threats except exterminating the enemy. But she was not going to let Dryce sacrifice himself for one Wreetan soldier.

  He glanced at the alien one more time before scrambling to his feet and joining Peyton. She didn’t have a good view of the alien, could only see his feet moving slowly as he curled to his side. Dryce’s claws were covered with a viscous yellow liquid that might have been alien blood. Maybe she should have been disgusted, but this was Dryce and he had been protecting her. He could wash the blood off once they were safe.

  Peyton glanced up at him and words caught in her throat. She was almost certain that the teleporter would get them home safely. And if not home, at least they would be on Earth. But there was a slight chance, incredibly minute, that they didn’t survive the journey. Especially if the ship destructed before their teleport was complete. She wanted to tell him what he meant to her, how he made her feel, but the words wouldn’t come out and Peyton couldn’t waste another minute trying to save them.

  She offered Dryce a smile and took a deep breath before joining two wires together and sending them home.